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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie Oleson" data-source="post: 424986" data-attributes="member: 8">CHRISTIANE F. (1981)[ATTACH=full]56568[/ATTACH]I vividly remember our schoolyard talk about this allegedly shocking film, and it also got quite some coverage in the media. Perhaps it was impossible not to know of this film and yet I've never been tempted or compelled to watch it, until yesterday.The most likely scenario is that another shocking thing happened (my discovery of soap operas?) and Christiane F. faded into the background.I may as well confess that TAXI & F. was an intentional double bill feature combo DVD purchase (not released in the same package, thankfully).I had prepared myself for a few or a lot cringe-moments - and I'd do exactly the same if it were a Dutch film - but I was surprised to see how very well made it is.The only thing that proved to be a minor challenge was to mentally adjust myself to the film's setting. Christiane's story starts in 1976 but I've always thought of it as an early 1980s film.I wondered if they had made an effort to capture the look of mid-seventies Germany but that became an exhausting exercise and after a while I decided to watch it "as is". It's not as if Christiane's ordeal couldn't have happened in 1980 or 1981.The most significant reminder is probably the music and the nightlife entertainment, although I'm sure that the (what would become the) more traditional discothèques already existed. Boney M's Baby, Do You Wanna Bump   was released in 1975 but Christiane just happened to be a David Bowie fan.Anyway, I just wanted to highlight how difficult it can be to produce or to enjoy "period drama" when that period only represents a few years or just one decade.Had the story been completely scripted then I'd struggle to believe that 13 y/o children were allowed to take the evening train to downtown clubland and come home whenever they felt like it.But I didn't grow up in a big city and I don't come from a dysfunctional family, and I was not a girl.The appeal of the underground scene and all the freedom that goes with it is self-explanatory. It even reminded me of a scene from TAXI ZUM KLO in which the gay teacher asks his pupils to act out the one thing they like to do most. Fighting, swearing, ruin their clothes with a pair of scissors - in other words: Pinocchio's Bad Boys Land.Even I have experienced something similar in nursery school. Kids love chaos and it already starts there.As for "drugs is bad and this is what could happen to you" it seems irrational to expect any big surprises, and we already know that the protagonist has managed to escape it all.What makes this film so great is that it looks like a sci-fi/dystopian Night Of The Living Dead (or a better Blade Runner).Citizens watch in horror how another group of citizens fall victim to a self-inflicted epidemic.[ATTACH=full]56569[/ATTACH]I wouldn't say that the film is unwatchably gritty, it never reaches the level of gore as seen in the opening scene of Withnail & I.  Now that  was hard to watch.It's more like a predecessor to Trainspotting, minus the psychedelic effects.Oh, and then there's Christiane's whoring little boyfriend Detlef played by Thomas Haustein. His only acting role, apparently.[ATTACH=full]56570[/ATTACH]He reminds me of the many inexplicably handsome and adorable guys I saw or knew in the early 80s (although the class group photographs in my photo album strongly suggests the opposite).The thing is, beauty and sex and being in love never feels as strong as during those adolescent years. It's the unstoppable force of development, discovery, awareness and confrontation rolled into one. It's quite cruel, actually, and should not be dismissed as an insignificant crush. Detlef is constantly fighting the gravity of his bangs, and combined with his broody and "unavailable" appearance it makes him look otherworldly attractive. "If Alain Delon and Tobey Maguire had a baby".....something like that.CHRISTIANE F. was a very nostalgic and very satisfying experience, and David Bowie sang Heroes  in German language. I can't ask for more.</blockquote>

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